Saturday, March 5, 2011

Animals

We customarily refer to bestial or brutal individuals as "animals," yet I firmly believe that no matter how the puma eyes me as I pass his cage, sizing me up for his supper, or whatever noxious bacterium or creature one can think up, no creature on earth but human beings can be evil. I suppose I buy into the definition of crime that Foucault discusses in his book Discipline and Punish, the notion that intentionality is all. But who knows what the intentions of a killer whale or a gila monster really are? I am making a lot of assumptions about this.

About Me

It feels odd to tell people, when they ask you what you do, that you are a poet. It is of course not a proper profession, if by "proper" one means a job that brings in money.
It is most certainly an occupation though. Reading, writing, going to poetry events make up a sizable percentage of my life.